Willing & able

DOES your vagina work? This is the question that Kelly Vincent, the young South Australian MP who has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair, has been confronted with more than once. ''I've been asked that in settings that are quite inappropriate,'' she says.

''There's this assumption because one part of your body doesn't work as usual that you then lose any ability or any desire to use your body in a variety of ways, when it's very much not the case.''

The startling question demonstrates the massive lack of understanding about people with a disability and their sexuality. ''I think a lot of people presume that people with disabilities are mostly asexual, they think it makes it their right to be really inquisitive about our sex lives, or lack thereof,'' says Vincent.

Vincent is part of a groundswell of activism that, if successful, will ultimately mean that these sort of extraordinary questions - and the appalling ignorance they demonstrate - are consigned to history. The aim is a wider recognition of the sexuality of people with disabilities and the right for them to find fulfilment of this most basic of needs.

A scene from Scarlett Road, an Australian film about sex worker Rachel Wotton, who specialises in clients with disabilities.

There has been steady, step-by-step progress in raising awareness, but in recent times, it is Hollywood that has done more to raise the issue in the public consciousness than anything else. The Sessions, which is now showing in cinemas, is the moving story of the late journalist and poet Mark O'Brien, who contracted polio as a child and was dependent on an iron lung. Despite that, he was determined not to die a virgin.

In the movie, O'Brien (played by John Hawkes) has his wish fulfilled by sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen Greene (Helen Hunt). It's written and directed by Melbourne's Ben Lewin, himself a polio survivor.

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Lewin was inspired after reading an essay O'Brien had written, in itself a powerful piece of journalism.

''I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be held, caressed, and valued. But my self-hatred and fear were too intense,'' O'Brien wrote. ''I doubted I deserved to be loved. My frustrated sexual feelings seemed to be just another curse inflicted upon me by a cruel God.''

The movie, which is generating Oscar buzz, premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, where it won standing ovations and two awards. Yet there was another film on the same subject submitted to the festival's organisers that arguably should have made the cut, but didn't.

Scarlet Road is a documentary on Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton, who specialises in working with clients with disabilities. Sensitive and deeply moving, the film by Catherine Scott has been aired on SBS, and continues to win international acclaim.

South Australian MP Kelly Vincent, who has cerebal palsy. Photo: Dean Sewell

''Personally, I find it a bit sad that Sundance would prefer to have Helen Hunt playing sexual surrogate, talking about … the rights of people with disability to explore their sexuality, and yet they don't want a real live person who actually does that,'' says Wotton, who tour ed with the documentary in Germany as part of an international film festival on disability in late November.

There has been an ''overwhelmingly positive'' reaction to the documentary and the message it carries. Wotton notes that for many people, it's the first time that they have thought about the issue because it's been hidden for so long.

''It's like this brave new world,'' says Wotton. ''People are saying, 'You're so brave, you're so wonderful'. No, I'm just doing my job, and I'm treating people with the equal amount of respect they deserve.

''I often say, we put a man on the moon how many decades ago, and yet we're still fighting for equal rights for sex workers and also equal rights for people with disability. It's not rocket science to us, but for the rest of the world, it seems to be this new phenomenon.''

Wotton is part of the Touching Base group, which provides a referral service for people with disabilities seeking sex workers. Founded in 2000, the group also provides training for sex workers who have clients with disabilities.

''We've been chugging away on these issues for quite some time now and we've been reasonably effective for an organisation which has no funding or even an office, apart from my second bedroom,'' says the group's president, Saul Isbister.

Denise Beckwith, who has cerebral palsy and won a bronze medal at the Sydney Paralympics, is vice-president of Touching Base, and works for People with Disability Australia. She is the co-ordinator of the group's disability rights information service, which holds the referral list of disability-friendly sex workers and offers advice to people wanting to access it.

''Sex workers have always been seeing clients with disability,'' says Beckwith. ''It's just now the issue of disability and sexuality is coming to the fore, because people are realising that people are individuals, and they have individual needs and wants.''

She says sex workers and clients with disabilities have a lot in common. ''People judge them without really knowing them, so the parallels are there.''

Significantly, Touching Base is based in Sydney, a reflection of the fact that sex work is decriminalised in NSW. The environment, says Isbister, ''supports our broader agenda, and means that we can be out and open in what we do''.

There has been strong interest from around Australia, and the group's referral list of disability-friendly sex workers and accessible premises has been expanded to cover other jurisdictions. ''This is a demand which is only increasing month by month.''

The group has provided training for sex workers in Victoria, who operate under a stricter regime of regulation that involves registration of sex workers and mandatory health checks.

Melbourne sex worker Christian Vega has clients with disabilities and is a strong advocate for reform of Victoria's laws to mirror NSW. When he speaks at forums, he regularly hears stories from carers and support workers who are uncertain about their position in helping access sex workers. Vega says they tell him: ''I'm not sure what I'm doing is entirely legal. I'm not sure what I'm doing is entirely going to be supported by the management of my organisation.

''That's the thing with highly discriminatory legislation,'' he says. ''It makes it very difficult for people to know that they are complying with the law.''

In South Australia, Kelly Vincent has been campaigning in support of decriminalisation, arguing it would benefit people with disabilities. Vincent, who represents the Dignity for Disability party in the state's upper house, threw her support behind a private members' bill by Labor MP Steph Key that would have decriminalised all forms of sex work.

Last month, the bill was defeated in the lower house by only one vote in controversial circumstances - eight MPs were missing from the chamber, including two who were locked out when they failed to make it in time.

Vincent, the first Australian politician to permanently use a wheelchair and the youngest woman in any Australian parliament, has been a passionate advocate for decriminalisation. But she also points out that seeing a sex worker is only one option for people with a disability - the same as the wider population.

There are people with disabilities who have no interest in sex. ''And remember, there are plenty of people without disabilities who also use or who would like to use the services of sex workers, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they don't have the self-confidence to get into a relationship, or to meet people … I'm sure there are just as many people with disabilities as non-disabled people who have one-night stands and all that kind of thing as well.

''It's not as though people with disabilities either have to be in a protective, loving, wrapped up in cotton wool kind of relationship, or seeing a sex worker. It's a bit of a pun, saying this because it's a hot topic, but there are shades of grey - maybe 50 shades.''

The view is shared by Touching Base. ''There are millions and millions of people with disabilities around the world in loving relationships, who are on the dating scene,'' says Wotton.

Yet having the ability to see a sex worker can have a profound impact. Caitlin, who has cerebral palsy, was only 16 when she saw a male sex worker, whom she found with the help of her open-minded father.

''I didn't know anyone with disability. My social circles were quite small. I didn't know what my body was capable of. So I wanted to know,'' says Caitlin (not her real name).

''It was an awesome experience. It taught me what I was capable of physically. It gave me a lot of confidence as well.''

THE Sessions has received widespread critical acclaim. But how does it rate with those with a more detailed knowledge of the subject? ''I think it's a really brave and powerful film, actually,'' says Isiah McKimmie, a sex therapist who once worked as a surrogate. ''For me, what really struck me [was] how really important our sex lives are to our sense of self.''

She loved seeing the change in the character of Mark O'Brien, and his growing confidence. ''Any film that takes on taboo subjects like sex and disability, particularly a film that puts them together, does show a lot of courage, and I think they've done it brilliantly.''

A key to O'Brien's story is that he loses his virginity to a sex surrogate, not a sex worker. McKimmie says that

while sex surrogacy has been around since the 1960s, people still grapple with what it means.

She says that a surrogate is part of a three-way relationship, with a client referred to them by a psychologist or sex therapist. In her own experience of working as a surrogate, there was never intercourse. As an example, she has worked with a male client who would suffer extreme anxiety even being in the same room as a woman.

''The biggest difference I see is that a sex worker is there to provide gratification,'' she says. ''As a surrogate, and as a sex relationship coach now, I'm there to teach my client, and that's not always gratifying for them.''

Rachel Wotton has a different view of The Sessions. ''To be quite honest, I felt quite uncomfortable watching part of it,'' she says. ''I thought the surrounding characters were really good, but the surrogate herself, at the beginning, I felt that the film makers were probably trying too hard to show that it was a clinical job.

''The first time she meets him, she walks in the room and she stays very far apart from him …

''In my world, especially with someone who can't move so much in terms of disability, you would always sit down on the bed, or you would stand with them and, like, touch their shoulder or their hand and say, 'Hi, how are you?', and then you would explain what you were going to do.

''She just kind of jumps right in and was having a conversation about stuff and kind of getting undressed. For the first session, that's really unacceptable.''

Wotton was also unimpressed with how quickly the surrogate stripped off and got into bed. Rather, she says it should be a learning experience. She cites the example of clients who can't move their arms much. ''I'll undo part of my bra and then I'll hook their finger underneath my bra strap, so that they're involved in it, so they can say I've helped undress a woman, or I've taken someone's bra off. That's part of the journey. It's not just about, let's touch your genitals.''

Even though she acknowledges the movie is based on a true story and the movie makers consulted with the real surrogate, Cheryl Cohen Greene, Wotton felt it a missed opportunity. ''This is the first time that a sexual surrogate has been on the big screen. They could have done a much better job.''

So it was Sundance Festival's loss not to screen Scarlet Road. ''I think it's a real shame Sundance decided not to bring Scarlet Road there,'' she says.

''I think it would have been such a magical experience to be able to have such an open discourse on the rights of people with disabilities, sex versus sexuality, and sexual expression with that.''

At the same time, she sees how the success of The Sessions is helping raise awareness of Scarlet Road and its message of the right of people with a disability to have a sex life.

''You're talking to me,'' she notes. ''You didn't call me when Scarlet Road was a finalist at the Sydney Film Festival …''